Fairy Tales Every Child Should Know eBook

Locking the door behind her, she descended a few steps
into the cellar, and crossing it, unlocked another
door into a dark, narrow passage. She locked
this also behind her, and descended a few more steps.
If any one had followed the witch-princess, he would
have heard her unlock exactly one hundred doors, and
descend a few steps after unlocking each. When
she had unlocked the last, she entered a vast cave,
the roof of which was supported by huge natural pillars
of rock. Now this roof was the under side of
the bottom of the lake.

She then untwined the snake from her body, and held
it by the tail high above her. The hideous creature
stretched up its head towards the roof of the cavern,
which it was just able to reach. It then began
to move its head backwards and forwards, with a slow
oscillating motion, as if looking for something.
At the same moment the witch began to walk round and
round the cavern, coming nearer to the centre every
circuit; while the head of the snake described the
same path over the roof that she did over the floor,
for she kept holding it up. And still it kept
slowly osculating. Round and round the cavern
they went, ever lessening the circuit, till at last
the snake made a sudden dart, and clung to the roof
with its mouth.

“That’s right, my beauty!” cried
the princess; “drain it dry.”

She let it go, left it hanging, and sat down on a
great stone, with her black cat, which had followed
her all round the cave, by her side. Then she
began to knit and mutter awful words. The snake
hung like a huge leech, sucking at the stone; the
cat stood with his back arched, and his tail like
a piece of cable, looking up at the snake; and the
old woman sat and knitted and muttered. Seven
days and seven nights they remained thus; when suddenly
the serpent dropped from the roof as if exhausted,
and shrivelled up till it was again like a piece of
dried seaweed. The witch started to her feet,
picked it up, put it in her pocket, and looked up
at the roof. One drop of water was trembling on
the spot where the snake had been sucking. As
soon as she saw that, she turned and fled, followed
by her cat. Shutting the door in a terrible hurry,
she locked it, and having muttered some frightful
words, sped to the next, which also she locked and
muttered over; and so with all the hundred doors,
till she arrived in her own cellar. Then she sat
down on the floor ready to faint, but listening with
malicious delight to the rushing of the water, which
she could hear distinctly through all the hundred
doors.

But this was not enough. Now that she had tasted
revenge, she lost her patience. Without further
measures, the lake would be too long in disappearing.
So the next night, with the last shred of the dying
old moon rising, she took some of the water in which
she had revived the snake, put it in a bottle, and
set out, accompanied by her cat. Before morning
she had made the entire circuit of the lake, muttering